Chaosbound: Elarith Chronicles

The fury was a bitter poison in Lumiel's veins. He stood in the heart of what was once the Sanctum Imperium, a place that now existed only as a cloud of dust and the faint smell of burnt ozone. He had lost his citadel, the Malice Bloom, and worst of all, his control. Everything was supposed to be working smoothly: the flow of fate, the harvest of chaos energy, the control of the continent, the fall of the Abyssals… The memory of his meticulously crafted plan, a masterpiece of divine foresight, now felt like a cruel joke.

The Abyssals.

A cold, biting anger swept over him. They were the ones responsible. They had done this. The other God Stewards would be at his throat, but it was their own arrogance that had led to this moment. They had been so focused on maintaining the pact, they failed to see the true nature of chaos. He was supposed to play it cool, to not rush things. Scanning the ruins of the Sanctum Imperium, he saw the remnants of his army still fighting. A chilling, slow laugh escaped his lips, then grew into a full-throated, manic cackle as he covered his face with one hand.

"Ha ha ha ha!"

He dropped his hand and his voice turned low and menacing.

"I watched you play your little games. I let you think you were in control as you grew, planted, and harvested. Your groups, your factions, your pointless games of cat and mouse... I permitted it all. Your very breath was a gift I could have taken at any moment. You exist only because I allow it."

He straightened, his laughter gone.

"But no more. This time, I'll take the stage. There will be no more games. No more playing. I will show you all what happens when you anger a being of true divine power."

With a final, echoing laugh, Lumiel floated into the air. He released a torrent of energy—holy and chaotic at once—and every angel, chaos being, and living creature in the vicinity simply ceased to exist. Their lives were snuffed out just like that. This act directly violated the very foundation of the God Stewards' pact: the prohibition against directly harming any life on Elarith. But Lumiel no longer cared about the consequences. He was done playing it cool; he was going to act as if he were God. Everyone's life would now be in his hands.

"Well, I guess it's time now," he muttered.

Closing his eyes, he scanned the continent with his mind, his senses locking onto a single target: Aurel. A moment later, he blinked and appeared directly in front of him. Aurel, caught completely off guard, staggered back a step, his eyes wide with shock and caution.

"Who are you?"

"Oh, hello there," Lumiel said smoothly. "I'm sorry, but I'm in a hurry. I'm going to need your help."

"What do you want?" Aurel asked, his hand instinctively glowing as his innate chaos force began to respond to the threat.

"Oh, sorry. I meant, I'm going to need your life," Lumiel corrected, a wicked smile playing on his lips. "And all the chaos energy in you."

"Very funny," Aurel snarled, his hand now engulfed in a swirling vortex of dark, unpredictable energy. "You must be Lumiel." He thrust his hand forward, attempting to unleash a strike, but before his power could fully form, Lumiel casually held his hand, stopping the attack instantly.

"Resistance is futile," Lumiel stated.

Aurel's mind raced, desperately searching for an answer, a technique, anything to counter this impossible being. But the chaos energy he had always relied on felt like a child's tantrum against an immovable wall. His body, his power, his very will, were nothing in the face of this self-proclaimed god.

Lumiel moved with an impossible speed, blurring from Aurel's right to his left, behind him, then suddenly, his face was inches away from Aurel's. The touch on Aurel's neck was unnervingly gentle, a caress that promised violence.

"Ahhh, precious little vessel of chaos. Poor little child."

Aurel couldn't move. A cold dread gripped him.

What's happening? I can't move.

"Don't worry," Lumiel's voice was a low, almost affectionate hum, "I'll be gentle. It won't hurt... much." The words did nothing to soothe Aurel's panic, only deepening the sense of violation as this divine steward treated him like a fragile, inanimate thing.

"I told you, there's no point in resisting," Lumiel said, his voice a sinister whisper. "Who do you think gifted you that chaos essence? It's a beautiful, raw power, but so... untamed. Like a kitten trying to roar. Well, technically, I didn't give it to you directly. It was me who gifted it to Sybris, but of course, I made some alterations. It was always meant to be a conduit for collecting chaos to aid me in HIS revival. But now, I'm going to have to fast-track the process, and you're in it."

Lumiel seized Aurel, who was now completely frozen and unable to do anything, and they teleported back to a spot near the ruined Sanctum Imperium. He threw Aurel against a wooden post, and chains of pure light energy slowly wrapped around him, pinning him. The ground beneath them began to rise, forming a mountainous structure that brought them closer to the sky. The earth groaned and cracked, rising like a jagged spire of rock and debris. Above them, the sky darkened, and lightning began to flash.

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

"Come on, I bet you're curious about what's going on," Lumiel said, tilting his head. "Go on, ask." He paused, then laughed softly. "Oh, sorry, you can't talk, can you? Well, I'll be kind enough to tell you what I'm going to do."

"Originally, I planned to revive the Chaos God. But now I'm having a change of heart. I'm going to destroy everyone and start fresh. Maybe I'll leave a few humans to repopulate. I need a clean slate—no Abyssals, and the current three athenaris are useless maggots anyway. Of course, to do that, I need to ascend. The others are coming for me because I broke our pact, so I'm running out of time."

"I feel sorry for you, I truly do. It just happened to be you. I planted the seed, became fresh fruit now ripe for the harvest. Don't worry, though. I'll still revive the Chaos God once I'm done with the purging. Everything I've done is for him."

As he spoke, Lumiel's gaze drifted from the ruined Sanctum Imperium to the distant horizon. His eyes, for a brief, fleeting moment, held a flicker of the sorrow he carried—the weight of millennia of waiting and searching. The rage was still there, a burning fire beneath his skin, but it was tempered by a deep, heartbreaking loneliness. He wasn't just a monster; he was a steward who had lost everything for the one being he truly worshipped.

Flashback: Time of Gods

It happened so suddenly. The God of Light, once a source of brilliance, had become corrupted, a god out of control. It killed all the other lesser gods. Lumiel witnessed everything—how the other gods came together to fight the abomination, only to be overwhelmed. It became an insatiable monster, its power corrupting and destroying them from within. One by one, they fell. Even the mighty War God was useless in the face of this horror.

With the fall of the gods, the sky turned red. The corruption spread as the massive body of the God of Light knelt and screeched an eerie sound. The young Lumiel, who served the God of Light, watched in horror.

"My God, what have you done?"

In a state of shock, Lumiel fled, hiding far away. The god who had created him, whom he had served and loved, was the one who had caused this corruption. The land of Soltheris, where the gods once brought peace and abundance, was now a desolate wasteland. All Lumiel felt was hate.

Then, one day, the Chaos God appeared before him. The Chaos God was known to be a recluse, a god who rarely interacted with anyone. Some believed his nature was unpredictable—neither good nor evil, just chaos itself. Lumiel realized then that this god cared for others more than himself. The Chaos God instructed him to go and follow his stewards, who would lead everyone to safety.

"I'm sorry, but I'm bringing an end to your Creator, Lumiel," the Chaos God said.

"Please, allow me to help you," Lumiel pleaded.

"No," the Chaos God replied. "If you want to help, please help as many creatures as possible and follow my stewards. It's not an order, but do it."

So Lumiel helped with the evacuation, saving countless lives. Yet, he couldn't resist returning to witness the fight. He saw it all. The world seemed to hold its breath as two impossible forces collided. The corrupted God of Light, a writhing abomination of blinding, sickly-white energy, shrieked, a sound that cracked the very sky. In contrast, the Chaos God was a pillar of pure, consuming darkness, a void that swallowed light and sound. The air itself shivered as they clashed. When the God of Light unleashed a torrent of corrupted light, the Chaos God did not block it. Instead, he simply absorbed it, the brilliant energy dissolving into the darkness of his form, like a scream vanishing into a black hole. Lumiel watched in awe as the abnormal God's power, which had overwhelmed all the others, was rendered utterly futile. The Chaos God was not simply stronger; he was a fundamental force of nature that the God of Light couldn't comprehend. The final strike was not a heroic blast of power but a simple, terrifying gesture: the Chaos God extended a hand, and the very essence of the God of Light unraveled, collapsing into nothingness. The abomination's existence was simply... erased.

After that, Lumiel followed the Chaos God, dedicating himself wholeheartedly to his service. He even helped in the creation of the Holy Veil, a grand artifact meant to protect their new home. Lumiel saw firsthand how the Chaos God cared for everyone, though he never acted arrogantly. He was a god who tried not to get too close to anyone, fearing his very nature might affect those near him.

Many years passed. One day, the Chaos God simply vanished from his sight. Lumiel assumed he was just in one of his normal periods of seclusion, but as time stretched on, he grew worried. He waited and waited, but the Chaos God never returned. So he began to seek him, searching for countless millennia. Then, he found it.

He watched, his heart breaking, as the Chaos God's form began to unravel. It was like watching starlight fade from the cosmos, a being of pure chaos turning to dust and silence. The Chaos God noticed his presence and turned, his gaze falling upon Lumiel. He merely smiled, a gentle, sorrowful look that said "Goodbye."

"That's it? You're just disappearing?" Lumiel cried out, a sob catching in his throat. "No, no, no, no! Please don't! My God, please don't! No, no, no!"

He watched, powerless, until the very last bit of the Chaos God's essence totally disappeared. All that was left was a handful of shimmering, dark dust and a single, throbbing orb of pure chaos energy on the scorched ground. It was a fragment of a god—his god.

Back to the Present

As Lumiel reminisced about the past, a tear fell from his eye.

"I'm sorry, my God, I'll have to delay your revival for a bit," he whispered. "But I promise you, once I'm done with my task, you will wake up to a purer world."

And so it began. Lumiel used his light magic to raise Aurel's body into the air, causing his chaos core to react. His body began to glow with a brilliant, silver light, and from it, three artifacts of pure crystal materialized, pulsing with power. They were not just solid but seemed to be growing, crystalline vines reaching from his very being. Another artifact, a dark, jagged crystal, materialized between them, its surface swirling with a dark, purplish light.

The conduit crystal strained, a vortex of two opposing forces fighting to exist in the same space. A low, grinding sound, like tectonic plates shifting, emanated from its depths, and small fractures webbed across its surface as it struggled to contain the raw power.

Lumiel, floating in the air, closed his eyes, a serene expression on his face as he felt the raw power of both light and chaos being processed and slowly transferred into his being.

The sensations were overwhelming—a perfect harmony and a violent dissonance all at once. The light essence, a familiar comfort, felt like cool water flowing into him, but the chaos energy was a wild, untamed fire, burning its way through his divine form. He could feel it strengthening him, changing him, twisting the very core of his being. The power he had given away, now returned tenfold, was a beautiful, terrible thing. It was a promise of a new world, a new beginning forged in the ashes of the old.

Somewhere else, high in the sky, Nephra floated beside Sybris and Whiz on a crystalline platform that shimmered in the sky.

"Ah, it finally came to this," Sybris said, a note of satisfaction in his voice. "It is just as you predicted, Nephra."

Nephra's eyes, filled with a thrilling excitement, fixed on the distant scene.

"You fell for it, Lumiel.""